6.2 Hellfire Citadel - Mythic Bastion of Shadows

This page is to be a brief summary on the third wing of mythic boss fights of Hellfire Citadel, written from the perspective of a hunter. The purpose of this is to act as a documented archive of our kills and to potentially aid any others currently working on the boss who're looking for resources and happen to come across the page.
I have swapped Tyrant Velhari and Fel Lord Zakuun to reflect typical mythic progression order. Fel Lord Zakuun will be in Bastion of Shadows, Velhari in Destructor's Rise.

Seventh boss is SHADOW-LORD ISKAR

First kill was July 23, 2015 - world 107, US 20

Shadow-Lord Iskar is a quick boss, usually taken down with Socrethar in the same day after a guild manages to get past the Gorefiend wall. Of the two, however, Iskar is the one not to underestimate.

There are two ways to do this fight - with Dark Bindings or without. To do the fight without, essentially removing the mythic mechanic from the encounter, you need enough DPS to burst the Phantasmal Resonance spawn before it casts Chains of Despair. Bursting down the Resonance is the easy way to do the fight, and how we do it now.. I recommend working your DPS around this strategy.

Our first kill did not use this strategy and we instead dealt with the Dark Bindings. You will see this in our video. If you lack the DPS to burst down the Resonance, dealing with the Dark Binding is still a valid strategy - just slightly more complex and easier for people to mess up. Usually from taking too long, standing on the wrong person or not passing the Eye off to a healer/tank for interrupts and dispels.

There's not much specific for a hunter here. If you're trying to burst down the Resonance, you may have to hold and pool your cooldowns for specific phase pushes in the fight. This will make your overall damage worse, but overall damage doesn't really matter in progression: if there is a damage road block without a hard enrage, you can beat the boss with garbage overall DPS. I say this as encouragement for hunters (or other dps) who are trying to burst the Resonances' to avoid the Dark Bindings, but are having trouble because they blew their CD's at the start of the fight on Iskar [or all of them in phase push 1]. If the second Resonance is the one you're not killing in time, consider moving CD's to that location - even at the cost of a cast.

On the phase push, your priority will usually be Phantasmal Resonance > Fel Raven > Shadowfel Warden > Talonpriest, depending on your strategy. Barrage and the Felstorm Mirror trinket are good here, but keep in mind the hunter niche is burst single target priority control.

Mechanics wise, keep fire out of melee. This is particularly easy for hunters, as we can use deterrence and stand on the fire spawn to prevent it from spreading. Move out at approximately 1s left on Deterrence. For winds, disengage will not be of much use. Aspect of the Cheetah will be, and pre-emptively disengaging before the winds cast to get further away is also a good idea. Otherwise you're at the fate of your team mates.
Iskar Assist or RT Iskar will work for this encounter ... I have both displayed in the video. My preference would be Iskar Assist because it has more customization control. If you don't already have your mouse within range of the addon before winds starts, you've done it wrong. Even when you don't have the eye, you should have your mouse over someone with winds waiting.

During the phase push, if for whatever reason you have the Eye of Anzu while the Fel Warden is up and casting Fel Conduit, interrupt it. Generally you will just ensure a healer or tank has the Eye during the phase and they will do this job. On the phase push, know who should have the Eye each time. Be aware when a mage is targeted for Fel Chakram as they can invis and prevent it going off.

Focus Blast is aimed at whichever player currently has the Eye of Anzu, which the raid should stand in and soak. If the person with the Eye is in BFE they will probably die.
If you are doing Dark Bindings, the trick is to pass the ball. Not a hard concept, but many people hold it while they look for or walk to their partners. Get the eye, see who you're paired with, THROW THE EYE, then go meet your partner. You should not have the eye for longer than a second or two.

Finally, Shadow Riposte. Huge pet peeve of mine here. Lots of people don't bother to learn this mechanic. This is cast on the target who is holding the Eye when the cast comes up (every 30s or so). If they still have the eye when the cast finishes, it deals damage to you and throws the eye to the ground. People ignore it and make someone else pick up their eye. IF YOU HAVE THE EYE DURING SHADOW RIPOSTE, THROW THE EYE SO IT DOESN'T GET GROUNDED. Ehem.

Eighth boss is SOULBOUND CONSTRUCT OF SOCRETHAR THE ETERNAL

First kill was July 23, 2015 - world 116, US 25

There are different ways to handle the start of this fight. One will have you killing the adds that spawn, and another will have you trapping them in the back. We trapped our dog adds. If you're killing them, it's pretty straight forward. If you're trapping them, well...

Don't do any of that. Essentially: do not use the fel fish food, as it will break your trap. Do not try to trap BEFORE the meteor has gone out, because it will also break your trap. Turn your camera and look for the meteor graphic hitting the ground. Don't overlap traps, obviously, since one mob will trigger both. Do not stand too close to them, and if you do, have deterrence up. Binding shot is good for buying time. Trap both close enough to each other so the tank can use his prison and lock them both down forever.

Aside from this the fight is easy as long as you have a solid interrupt rotation for Exert Dominance. Hunters can help with this, but you'll generally be interrupting Shadowcallers to bring them in for cleave more often. Throw everything and the kitchen sink at Dominators, spread lightly before Gift of the Man'ari goes out, ensure all fixate lines cross fire and this boss should fall over. Aiming barrage so it hits ghosts can be helpful, but this will generally not be a hunters job (unless you're bursting one that got away).

Ninth boss is FEL LORD ZAKUUN

First kill was July 29, 2015 - world 135, US 24

Oh boy. Zakuun marked the start of my Internet lock ups. You'll have a better time of this than I did - trying to progress on Zakuun while going to the Shadow Realm with lockups was not fun. In fact, I specifically pushed Might to recruit a third hunter in case they needed to replace me for it.

On the plus side, it's a relatively simple fight that shouldn't take too long to master. It is a hard enrage, and probably will be shorter than 5 minutes, so plan your cooldowns to get the most damage from your limited cast amounts. The last 30% or so is the hard burn, which is where you will want your Stampede. Folks will tell you to use Power Shot - and you can - but the ST damage increase it provides is overstated. Either pick up Power Shot, or don't use a t90 talent at all, either or will provide similar results.

A mage will most likely handle your Cavitation soaks, but a hunter can do the same thing with Deterrence. Similarly, using deterrence to protect the pillars and the raid during seeds is also something that should be done. Have specific spots where those downstairs come back up, so as to be predictable. Strafe out for befouled, don't be that guy exploding on the raid.

Seeds must be straight. Cheat out around 5 seconds left on the timer so you can get to any marker on time, then ensure they are lined up properly. If done right all you have to do is take two steps forward to avoid the blasts. When soaking a pillar, you must wait for the BLACK CIRCLE to disappear. If the black circle is still there, you did not complete the soak. You'll have a debuff if successful.

Here is a gif of getting in position for seeds and dodging the resulting bad things.

While downstairs, the purple ring will come from where ever the prior folks downstairs went back up from. Look for one of the remnants to "pulse", indicating it's about to expand a ring for you to jump over. The purple waves can easily clip you with their tails, so be aware of that too - you'll see me clip one in the video. You can throw deterrence up after the second ring spawns in order to avoid jumping it and still have enough time left on deterrence to cheat out after you're upstairs to soak your basement groups stack point waves.